Elections, suddenly they are all concerned about us . . . Where were they when . . . ?

by chumchingee

I thought the State of the Union message was very entertaining. The devil would have been proud of them as he is the father of lies. (You will know them by their fruits . . . ) (The very best lies contain a little truth to make them seem honest)

Where were they when we went 3 years without a raise in Social Security because the economy and prices did not change? (Prices did change for the worse) In an election year they decide to give us a raise. If we elect this bunch we will go another 3 years without any relief from inflation.

Where were they when our freedoms under the bill of rights were voted out by the recent law changes, allowing them to use Russian type detention without legal recourse? (seems like a majority in Congress supported it)

Where were they when our banking system was bankrupt and fraud caused investors to lose a lot of money? (Oops, they voted in a bailout for the wealthy banks)

Suddenly 3 years after the campaign promise, we are getting out of Iraq and other places? No way. Probably we will hit Iran next.

Now both political parties are guilty. So which one do we choose? Liar Number One or Liar Number two? Or is there a third choice somewhere? (Even if there is, you may never see the name on a ballot. The game rules prevent it.)

I have checked out our current Knight in shining armor. He is still fighting windmills. Fighting windmills is still impossible to win anything with. I refer to Dr. Ron Paul. I have seen his philosophy and basically approve of a lot of what he says. What he doesn’t say is his policies will cause the worst depression this country has ever seen in its entire history. And I believe he is still right, dead right on a lot of issues. But no one in this or any future Congress will take him seriously enough to vote his way on issues very often. He is still known as Dr. NO for his votes in Congress. I am happy to say it continues.

Recently his son, Rand Paul came to the Congress from Kentucky. I was sorry to see he supports a National Right To Work Law. That means National Right To Slave without negotiations or benefits. Sorry Rand, cannot go along with poorly researched laws or laws from people that financed your election. (Namely corporations that would benefit from such a law.)

Rand recently went afoul of our police state in an Airport. He was denied by a random scanner the right to vote on issues in Congress. This is basically illegal under the First Amendment. So did he ask the Congress to redo the session due to the illegal search and detention? Not really. He wants them to do away with random searches and be more polite about it. No mention of violations of the First Amendment. (Really blows my confidence in you Rand . . .) I probably would have had the entire TSA responsible for this blunder fired. The rest of them would have to write out the Bill of Rights 200 times until they had it virtually memorized.

But I am just an old man, with old fashioned views on what is proper and not proper. I am 69 and a retired printer and proud of it. I am also an Air Force Veteran.

I believe our representatives should have enough respect for us not to lie period. If they feel it necessary to lie, then at least do so intelligently so the lie does not become so obvious that they have no reputation for honesty. Maybe it is time to change the game rules to allow other players into the search for decent representatives in Congress and the White House. If I cannot trust a person to tell me the truth or at least lie convincingly, they have no business representing me or anyone else in our Congress. If they are caught out in lies, I think the logical move is impeachment. Then elect someone else immediately to take their place. Lies should not be rewarded in our representatives.

What Obama did in his State of the Union was entertainment. His opposition soon found half truths all over the place. That wasn’t very smart in my opinion. He needs to get a better group of liars together to write his speeches or he needs to start telling people the truth without lies or half truths. I hope he sees the profit in that soon.

Years ago, I was an elected official of my Union. I was re-elected time and time again for almost 6 or 7 years. (I was re-elected every 6 months) I served as an assistant Union Official after that. Why? Because people believed in me. I always told the truth no matter how painful it was to me. If I got collections of dues wrong, no matter what the amount, I went back to the individual and made it right. I pioneered the use of spreadsheets to figure dues and kept those sheets up to date and above board. Anyone could see my books. I ran honest overtime lists and kept them that way. If a mistake was made, we apologized, then made it right the next time someone was hired overtime. Opposition ran all kinds of popular people against me in those seven years. No one was able to beat me. I finally retired from that position and gave it to another member I felt qualified to help us negotiate with my company of employment. Unlike most labor unions, even the foreman was a member. I made sure foremen were treated equally with anyone else. I got treated the same by my company bosses. They respected me for being honest and with no bias no matter who you were. Neither in all those years did I ever have to discipline a foreman for going outside the union rules. (I had to remind one elderly assistant foreman every day to go to lunch on time.) He never saw one penny of fines from me. He did see honesty and human values.

I hope those values will someday be shown in our representatives that we elect. I am not the brightest star here. I am a Christian by belief. I am not overly intelligent and cruised through school with average grades. There are many people I represented that were many times smarter than I ever hoped to be. I was a complete misfit in Service. I had 4 career fields in 4 years. No I am not more than reasonably intelligent. Where I was cunning, I asked these people who are smart their opinions on issues. Then I judged which one was the path I wished to follow. I told them my decisions ahead of time so they could take no offense. I discussed it with them frequently. I never lost an arbitration in all that time. I had very few arbitrations in my time. I had an informal group of past Union People both in and out of management to help me.

I even negotiated a buyout( against Union Policy of negotiating buyouts) that benefited two assistant foremen at one time.

My point is being honest is more important than short term gains. I hope to see a change soon along those lines. It might make getting re-elected a little bit easier for both parties.